SHILLONG: The Registrar of Cooperative Societies B D R Tiwari said on Tuesday that Meghalaya State Cooperative Marketing and Consumers’ Federation Limited (MECOFED) is yet to meet the expectations of the government.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a workshop, Tiwari said,” The objectives could not meet up to the expected level and there could be several reasons –organisational and structural reasons that have to be detailed”.
Tiwari,however said that the bright side the government looking at MECOFED is that it developed a marketing network in the rural areas. Our aim is to revive the network or re-associate the network with the ongoing Megha-LAMP project,” he added.
The one day workshop was organised by the Office of the Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Meghalaya in partnership with Meghalaya Institute of Entrepreneurship (MIE) under the aegis of the Integrated Basin Development and Livelihood Promotion (IDBLP) Government of Meghalaya at Meghalaya Bharat Scouts & Guides Hall, Shillong.
The Department of Cooperation strengthens the departments which deal with the development of Cooperatives in the state.
Tiwari, said that the department of cooperation is not that strong as that of certain states. “ But we are trying to evolve and cope with new things and to strengthen ourselves to fit with the needs of time.” He added.
Speaking on a positive note on providing help to budding entrepreneurs, Tiwari said that people are welcome to register themselves as entrepreneurs and whatever skills, counseling, advice, support, and facilities they required, it is there in every block to cater to the needs of the people, adding that they are working to associate it on an online basis to get better services. On youths facing unemployment problem, he said that with the existence of good marketing network, good skills and entrepreneurship promotion in a systematic way, there will be more employment generation for the educated youths of the state both in the rural and urban areas.
On the other hand, replying to a query on how prepared the rural people are towards ushering the cashless society in cooperative societies, he said, “We have to be prepared because in due course of time we will not live with options. It’s not about e-services only. There is a swiping machine in the village area and they can accept deposits and withdraw money.”
Earlier, Tiwari spoke at the one day consultative workshop on establishment and implementation of Consumer Services Depots (CSDs).
Highlighting on CSDs, he told reporters, “With CSDs, we want to develop in rural areas consumer service depots by providing commodities . But we don’t want to keep it like a shop but it should be associated with other services in due course of time.”
He indicated that CSDs will be associated with other services in due course of time for the purchasing point of village products and to work as banking correspondents in the village areas, to cater to banking e-services and moreover to associate with Integrated Village Cooperative (Societies) model developed under Megha-LAMP.
According to Tewari, the primary objective is to provide consumable items to the village people at rational rate and a platform for the purchase of village products and the linkages to market,” he said.
He added that in stages, it will be providing e-services including banking correspondents and associate fair price shops if possible.”
